Letter: A proposal to limit gun violence in the U.S.

We Americans are deeply shocked by the number of mass murders that have occurred during the past few years in our country, most recently in Las Vegas and in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The senseless violence has claimed victims of all ages, from infants and small children to the elderly. How can we stop this terrible scourge?

The obvious answer is to limit accessibility to guns, especially in the case of those unbalanced individuals with a malicious purpose. This has nothing to do with hunting and shooting for sport and target practice, which are perfectly legitimate activities. It has everything to do with people of a violent nature who are driven to kill their fellow human beings.

I propose the following measures to curb accessibility to lethal firearms.

One is to require a monthlong background check of potential gun purchasers, which would include a mental health evaluation at the time of initiating a purchase. Secondly, all weapons owners should be obliged to register with their local police (particularly to keep track of the number of guns acquired) and, through the police, with the FBI, which records private arms possession nationwide. Such registration would need to be renewed periodically. Finally, there should be a buy-back program to take unused and unwanted guns out of circulation.

If all of these measures were adopted, at both the state and national level, the plague of gun violence would begin to decline rapidly.